A woman, mother and poet: Afghan-American woman’s journey to freedom

When Shahla Latifi was an 18-year-old pharmacy student living in Kabul, Afghanistan, it was arranged that she would marry a 50-year-old Afghan man living in Jacksonville, Florida. She was excited to leave a violent Afghanistan for a man who seemed kind and promised her she could finish her degree in the United States. Instead, Shahla was locked into a 22 years of mental, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. But she finally found her strength, and her words, to escape.